Two Colorado Men Plead Guilty to Production of Child Pornography in Separate Unrelated Cases

DENVER – Two Colorado men recently pled guilty to the production of child pornography, with the produced videos and images involving children who were 4 weeks old (United States v. Sailas) and 3 to 7 years old (United States v. Gallegos) in each respective case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced.  The two men were prosecuted in unrelated cases. 

Jamie Sailas, age 30, of Metro Denver, pled guilty on January 15, 2016 to the production of child pornography before U.S. District Court Judge William J. Martinez.  Sailas is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Martinez on April 28, 2016 at 9:30 a.m.  According to the stipulated facts contained in the defendant’s plea agreement, Sailas came to law enforcement attention when an HSI agent working in Washington, DC conducted a proactive undercover investigation upon an Internet website that hosted chat rooms.  Users of these chat rooms have the ability to upload content to the chat room in the form of pictures and video.  While conducting the investigation, the HSI agent came across a link to a video that depicted an adult male engaging in intercourse with a minor female.  The investigation led the agent to specific subscriber information which had been submitted to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) by the Internet Service Provider.  The link was associated with an online storage account that belonged to Jamie Sailas, who at the time resided in Brighton, Colorado.  There were nearly 2,900 uploaded file names associated with Sailas’s online storage account, consistent with file names of videos containing child pornography.  An email account associated with the online storage account was also determined to belong to Sailas.  During the investigation, the local HSI agent learned that two additional NCMEC reports had been generated regarding Sailas, one which involved the email address associated with the online storage account.  A legal search of the defendant’s email account reflected that Sailas used the account to send or receive approximately 5500 images and 240 videos of child pornography. The material included minors as young as infants, with a large majority of content depicting prepubescent minor females.  It was ultimately determined that in addition to living in Brighton, the defendant worked at Game Trader in Brighton.  Search warrants were executed for Sailas’s home, workplace, and vehicle in November 2014.  Numerous electronic devices belonging to Sailas were recovered during the execution of the search warrants.  During the forensic examination of the electronic devices recovered during the search warrants, numerous images and videos depicting child pornography were recovered, including an image of child pornography that was recovered from one of Sailas’s cell phones.  The image of child pornography depicted a penis in the mouth of an approximately 4-week-old infant.  The image was taken by Sailas.  The defendant had access to the infant because he was a friend of the child’s mother.

Luis Alfonso Aragon Gallegos, age 29, of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, pled guilty on January 13, 2016 to the production of child pornography and to the possession of child pornography before U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson.  Gallegos is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Jackson on April 20, 2016 at 8:30 a.m.  According to the stipulated facts contained in Gallegos’ plea agreement, the defendant produced approximately 110 images and/or videos of a Colorado child while she performed sex acts on him.  The child was between 3 and 7 years old when the images and videos were created.  In addition, approximately 266,000 images and 16,100 videos of child pornography, which did not involve the Colorado child and were not produced by the defendant, were found on the defendant’s hard drives.  The majority of these files were of prepubescent children, including infants, who were recorded either nude in a sexually provocative manner or engaged in a sex acts.  Further, the files involving the Colorado child showed that sexual assaults occurred on 22 days, sometimes in multiple settings during the day.  During a child forensic interview, the Colorado child said that the defendant’s conduct continued until he was arrested in 2015.  Gallegos also shared child pornographic images peer-to-peer. 

“Children were victimized in this case in an unspeakable way,” said U.S. Attorney John Walsh.  “Thanks go to Homeland Security and FBI agents, along with federal prosecutors, whose hard work identified and apprehended the defendants of this terrible crime.”

“For good reason, there are significant penalties for predators convicted of sexually exploiting children,” said David A. Thompson, special agent in charge of HSI Denver.  “Jamie Sailas faces at least 15 years in federal prison after admitting he produced child pornography.  Homeland Security Investigations conducts these child sexual exploitation investigations to obtain justice for their victims, and remove these predators from decent society so they can’t harm other innocent children.”

"The FBI will continue to aggressively pursue those like Gallegos who prey on children, especially those who advertise, trade, and/or produce child pornography," said FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Thomas Ravenelle. "Crimes of this nature threaten to destroy our most precious resource, offend every sensibility, and cannot be tolerated. The FBI and our partners will spare no expense or resource to bring them to justice."

Sailas pled guilty to one count of production of child pornography, which carries a penalty of not less than 15 years, and up to 30 years in federal prison, and up to a $250,000 fine.  Gallegos pled guilty to 22 counts of production of child pornography, each of which also carries a penalty of not less than 15 years, and up to 30 years in federal prison, and up to a $250,000 fine per count.  He also pled guilty to one count of possession of child pornography, which carries a penalty of not more than 10 years in federal prison, and up to a $250,000 fine.

Jamie Sailas was investigated by HSI with assistance from the Brighton Police Department.  Sailas was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Alecia Riewerts.  Luis Alfonso Aragon Gallegos was investigated by the FBI with assistance from the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office, the 9th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, and the Glenwood Springs Police Department.  Gallegos was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Tonini.

These cases were brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.  Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.